A Slightly Forgotten Fairytale
by Ardentine
Summary: Balthier remembered reading a book once in his childhood about a devilishly handsome young boy going through unfortunate circumstances, entwining himself with an unlikely-liked character. He never realized that the story would be eerily close to his own.


**A Slightly Forgotten Fairytale:** _Written in a "Then and Now" format. Balthier remembered reading a book once in his childhood about a devilishly handsome young boy, going through unfortunate circumstances, entwining himself with an unlikely-liked character such as himself. He had never realized that the story would be eerily close to his own. _

A/N: The great people at Square-E are absolutely amazing to leave so many holes and broken plots for people such as myself to dive into my own fantasies and imagination in search for the right mysterious background for different characters. Oh my, that is truly scary. Even for me.

This story has been sitting on my Jump-Drive for the last four-five months or so, behind all of my term papers, and (to add to the fun) in a hidden folder. Fighting the better of my conscious to publish the story or not, I finally decide to put it up.

Again, when I had finished the game, it was another one of those, "What the?! I'm already finished" type of reaction that I had with other previous games I'd played (i.e. Dirge of Cerberus). But, thank goodness for the save crystal, and its awesome wonder-ness!

This is up for everyone's enjoyment, so please enjoy it! Have fun with it. I don't intend for people to stress over it because literature is after all meant for pleasure.

**Reviews are greatly appreciated because they tell me how the story is doing. So please, do me a great favor and tell me how I am doing. **

Disclaimer: I am not the owner of anything, except for Raileighna, her life and exploits, and any other characters that did not appear in the game. Everything else belongs to other geniuses, who have given us the pleasure of enjoying it. Thank you Square-E for creating such an invigorating game. Yes, men are meant for leather pants.

Enjoy the story!

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A book was protruding slightly from its neat and organized position on the shelf. Dr. Cid didn't give it much mind, but his curiousity stirred slightly when he saw one of the pages was bent on the corner. Before pushing it back because he was stressed over the pedantic organizational style of his library, he was curious to what Ffamran was currently reading, or trying to read. Ffamran Mid Bunansa's attention span doesn't reach as much when he is being forced to do something by his governess. That boy was notorious for drifting off into a daydream during his daily lectures, and in some extreme cases, he would completely dissapear from the schoolroom and reappear somewhere in Old Archades.

The man gave a grim shake of his head. That boy of his needed a better hobby than endeavoring into Old Archades. He found his beloved Ffamran Bunansa a few times playing—oh, what did he call it?—sky pirates with the other lowly Vulgars of the dirty slums.

Rumors weren't exactly healthy for the family.

"But Father, I am a _regal_ pirate!" Dr. Cid remembered Ffamran whining one time. "I doubt that the typical sky pirate style would fit my statue, and class. Not to mention my astounding taste." Ffamran ended up being dragged back up to Archades by the ear. Not only was his boy stupid, but he was slightly pompous about his looks. Dr. Cid constantly prided himself that Ffamran had received his unforgettable looks from _him_. However, Dr. Cid swore that the pompous trait was from his mother.

That incident happened a while ago, though. The boy was merely 13 the last time Dr. Cid had to haul Ffamran out of the place many people called the, "Shadow of Archades". To the good doctor's opinion, Old Archades was more like the "Latrine Deposit of Archades".

Even though the boy still sneaked into Old Archades behind his old man's back, he became slightly more studious in his studies as he grew older. Dr. Cid ignored the small fact that occasionally he would hear Ffamran's governess' cries of fury and loud smacks of the ruler against the desk emitting from the schoolroom once in a while.

Dr. Cid flipped to where Ffamran had left a page bent to mark his position in the book. The scientist chuckled slightly, knowing clearly that Ffamran had skipped the historical details enlisted in the front and jumped straight to the story.

The man skipped the intricate indictor of the first chapter and started reading.

"When the world of Ivalice was still calm. When no war purged her lands, there once lived neither a princess that had everything in the world, nor a maid who lived with an evil stepmother, waiting for her Prince Charming to whisk her away from her tower," the book started. Dr. Cid delicately scoffed at the intro. The book was starting off like any other Fairytale he had read during his own childhood. Ignoring his own emotions about the book, Dr. Cid continued down the page. "But there lived a heroine worthy of a tale.

"She was a regular upper-class born daughter. Her position in the world wasn't as high as the rest of her siblings, but nonetheless, she was born into such a well-to-do family that most of the people in Rabanastre wondered if she had ever felt what hardship was like. Out of her six siblings, our starred heroine by the name of Raileighna Dage Nuriel, the eldest daughter of the Nuriel family, didn't stand out as much as her younger sisters. Her younger siblings had their infamous dazziling smiles and beautiful bows that contrasted with Raileighna's uncertain pose, and awkward aura. The poor and sad oldest daughter of the Nuriel family was known for her glasses obtained when she was younger due to the long nights of reading in literally darkness, with only a small light from a candlestick to aid her across the page. Many had said she was a bantam little thing, standing at only a few heads shorter of an adolescent boy. She was also a dark beauty with her long mane of curling brown hair, and overzealous blue eyes. She wasn't a typical princess, or even a high ranking Lady-of-the-House with her stuttering speech, and frightened stance.

"She was hardly fit for _any_ title for that fact.

"Though, I--the author--am writing this story befitting a damsel who maybe wasn't as beautiful or had as much grace as a princess, but a story befitting a certain girl by the name of Raileighna Dage Nuriel. If only a prince, No! a leading man would lead her away to the happily-ever-after-bliss that she had always read about in the vast number of books in her family's library. If only there was truly a man of such stature then _her_ fairytale would be absolutely complete."

Dr. Cid, with much ease, closed the book with one hand and shook his head slightly yet again. Who would write such drivel?

A quick shove tucked the book back into the shelf between the other nameless and similar looking books. Dr. Cid had to figure out if it was the overweight governeness' idea to allow Ffamran to seek out such a tale, or it was of Ffamran's own interest. Dr. Cid thought it was the former. Ffamran was such a handful sometimes.

Dr. Cid strode out of the large room, hardly accomplishing anything that he wanted to do in the library in the first place. He had to find that fat governess. And above all, he had to find that Ffamran Mid Bunansa of his. Dr. Cid betted to himself one billion gils that his boy was off playing sky pirates, or executing some type of espionage with the other dirty Vulgars down in Old Archades. As the readers of this story and having full knowledge of this tale's situational irony, the 'good' Dr. Cidolfus Bunansa was surely going to be in debt for quite some time.

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